I don't normally write much about .NET Rocks here. Heck, I haven't been writing about much of anything here lately, but I just had a really good .NET Rocks day and thought y'all might like to hear about it.

For awhile now I've been doing most of the editorial planning - finding guests, scheduling, etc for .NET Rocks. I won't say I do it all because Carl does contribute plenty. And to be honest, most of the shows I schedule come from the listeners anyway: ask (email dotnetrocks@franklins.net), and you will receive. Really!

And since we've switched to two shows a week (and thanks very much for that, Telerik!), I've felt we could take more chances on shows... explore a little further afield so to speak. At one show a week, I always worried that I was not serving our core audience of developers effectively enough - doing some ethereal, abstract show on design concepts followed by a SQL show followed by a live show at a conference and next thing you know, its been a month since we've done a real "in the code" kinda show.

With two shows a week, that's not as much a concern, I can get a codey show every week and still have a chance to try some wackier things out.

Carl and I have also taken to recording shows back-to-back, usually on a Tuesday. We both find that as the day goes on, we get more and more excited about shows, to the point where at the fourth show of the day, we can be a little giddy (proof - have a listen to show 219 with Shaun Walker, it was a fourth). I've taken it as a cautionary note and stick with three shows normally. We need to keep a few shows ahead all the time so we can go to conferences and such while maintaining our twice a week publication schedule.

So at the end of recording today Carl was laughing at me because the three shows we recorded today could not have been more different. The first show we recorded was with Brad Abrams, the Group Program Manager of the .NET Framework, where we talked about some special announcements he'll make at MIX on May 1 (the same day the show will be published). We talked Silverlight (aka WPF/e) primarily. This was a cool show for me because of the publication synchronization with MIX - I'd like to do more stuff like this in the future.

Finally, we recorded a show with Rustan Leino, talking about Spec#, an extension to C# that focuses on static checking, pre- and post-condition contracts around methods and more. You'll hear this show on May 15.

When we were all done, Carl said "Wow Richard, we went from talking to a blue badge about the latest and greatest technology coming out of Microsoft to a broad discussion on design methodology to a deep drilldown into how languages ought to work in the future. What are you trying to do, kill me?!? My brain hurts!"

I saw it as a complement, really. I feel like I've achieved a goal of stretching the boundaries around what we can dig into with .NET Rocks. I hope you like the shows coming up as well, please let us know!

The discussion that Greg and I had with David Sengupta around Exchange focused primarily on more of the compliance related issues.

Its amazing to me how challenging it is to work through issues around email deleting policies. It sounds harmless, but really is something that you need to get legal advice around and is ultimately a business related decision.

Looks like we finally have info@runasradio.com working properly. Send us email with your thoughts about the show!

Scott Hanselman is, hands down, one of the most talented ASP.NET folks out there anywhere. And a phenomenal speaker. If you haven't listened to Hanselminutes before, do it NOW (okay, maybe after finishing reading this).

He's also a diabetic.

He's more articulate than I am about diabetes for no other reason than he's experienced it, so I hope you'll go read what he has to say if you need to understand more.

Me, I'm sold - diabetes needs to be beaten, I've made my contribution to Scott's goal of raising $50,000, and I hope you will too.

I've always had one foot in the IT camp and one foot in the development camp. That's one of the many things that makes me so weird. I see RunAs as an opportunity to exercise the IT side of my brain.

Greg Hughes is my co-host, he's an associate of Scott Hanselman, and works for Corillian as the Chief Security Executive and VP of IT. And he's got just the right wacky background for this all to work: started as a journalist, became a cop, then moved to the security side of IT. As he says, he's still hunting bad guys, just for more money (and less risk of being shot).

RunAs is a PWOP Production, just like .NET Rocks, dnrTV, Hanselminutes, etc. Dax built the web site, its Carl's software that drives the thing, I just find guests, book them, interview them and send the files to PWOP for processing.

I did get a fancy new recording rig to make all this work. My broadcast mike plugs into a MOTU Traveller that uses Firewire into Terrance, my 4960x1600 x64 XP beast. Also plugged into the MOTU is a Telos ONE+ONE for capture two telephone lines: one for Greg, and one for the guest. So I record my channel, Greg's phone track and the guest. Greg also does a local recording of himself (maximum quality, of course) and then all that is combined to make a show.

We're going to keep the show shorter than .NET Rocks, at least for now. I want to make sure the show stays focused on one topic for the duration. Of course, this will change based on what the listener wants... so tell me what you want! I'm all ears for show ideas, format changes, you name it. The email address for RunAs is info@runasradio.com.